


Not You (Still You)

by Flammenkobold



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for Ep104
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 12:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14894615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/pseuds/Flammenkobold
Summary: Tim Stoker walks out of a theatre that shouldn’t be there.Tim Stoker doesn’t walk out of a theatre that shouldn’t be there.





	Not You (Still You)

Tim Stoker walks out of a theatre that shouldn’t be there.

\---

Nikola laughs delightedly and Tim thinks ‘Oh, this is why Elias didn’t want me here.’

It doesn’t matter. He’s here now. Something deep inside him bubbles up and he joins in Nikola’s laughter.

Martin looks at him in confusion. John looks at him with growing horror and realisation.

\---

Tim Stoker doesn’t walk out of a theatre that shouldn’t be there.

\---

Timothy Stoker once came here to look for his little brother and found a monster. Or a monster found him. It doesn’t make a difference. The dance always requires new people. Danny, lost and searching, had fitted the bill. His brother, not lost but searching, had done so too.

\---

Tim Stoker walks out of a theatre that shouldn’t be there. Except he doesn’t.

\---

Nikola taunts John with how blind he is. Two of his assistants and he never noticed. What kind of Archivist does that make him. "Now, what should we do with the third?"

Martin just stares at him still, confusion mixing with fear and anger as he demands an answer with a shaky voice. Tim feels his lips split into a smile and something deep inside him, covered by skin and bone and ligaments not his own, resurfaces.

“Oh Martin, isn’t it obvious?”

\---

Tim Stoker doesn’t walk out of a theatre that shouldn’t be there - something else does.

\---

Martin looks hurt and afraid and close to tears. And for a moment Tim remembers Danny with such clarity it hurts. Danny six years old, sitting under a tree, holding his leg, blood streaming down his shin. Tim told him not to climb so high, told him he’ll fall, but Danny did anyway and Tim didn’t stop him. Just like he didn’t stop him from going urban exploring on his own.

“Tim?”

His head swims.

“Oh, darling, your Tim died before you even met him,” Nikola says and Tim doesn’t find it in himself to laugh.

\---

Tim Stoker walks out of a theatre that shouldn’t be there and he doesn’t. It's either or the other, only when it is neither and both.  


\---

Tim, who isn’t Tim, watches as Nikola taunts the people he has worked with for years. 

“He isn’t, he never was, and isn’t that  _ wonderful _ ?”

“Then you shouldn’t have given me his memories,” Tim says, who isn’t Tim but remembers every heartache, every joy, every bit of pain and love. Timothy Stoker loved fiercely and quietly and with such conviction it makes everything the Stranger offers feel pale in comparison. 

Nikola turns to him, for the first time confusion on her face.

\---

Tim Stoker doesn’t walk out of a theatre that shouldn’t be there. 

But the others do.


End file.
